You hear mechanisms whirring and Nai breathing and he presses his cheek against your bare shoulder and it's chilled but he's already dozing and you close your eyes, too, and you wonder how you were goaded into this a third night when you said just this once the first two.
Sleeping in poverty was different—was necessary—but as of late your bed was just your own and your comfort and you loved that. Nai wheedled his way in somehow and it was almost unfair. His hair—that goofy little dual-toned poof of it—tickles your chin, and you
You remember Tsubame bringing home a stray dog once.
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You observed that it ran in their family then, this practice of hauling scruffy, awful little mongrels home. Like a brat, you felt a bit cheapened by this—these people, you thought darkly, will bring any pitiful thing back here, won't they? No matter how troublesome, huh.
And the stray certainly was troublesome. (Never as much as you were. Not by a long shot.)
That girl coaxed him in with stale bread, her voice raised two octaves at the door to the shack you shared. You wanted to snap at her; that bread was supposed to last her a day or so more and the idea of waste had your nerves blaring like hot steel. But it was her share and she shared it as she liked and you had no right to say anything and you dipped your head to squint at the circuitry in your grubby fingers and you thought I have no interest in saying anything. But then again.
"What if it has rabies," you said from your corner—an afterthought that struck like a backhand. You twisted your face towards it then, eyes locked in a dead-eyed stare. "Tsubame."
"It doesn't," she said, affronted by the prospect. The conviction was pure belief, no evidence. But again, you clicked your tongue like a hiss and turned away, not before gauging the furball quivering at that girl's feet.
Sagged and sallow and scrawny, surely on the cusp of death and fighting disease. You would have been repulsed if you hadn't seen such things in worse places. What caught your attention was its stance of mistrust and the ferality of its eyes. Yotaka reached out to pet it as it limped inside—its jaw snapped so fast it must have hurt. You thought, what a beast. Hey, idiots, that thing clearly wants to be left alone.
"I'll ask Nee-san if we can help it," Yotaka said, uneasy but undeterred. As always, he was on the contrary to common sense. "I'll be right back, Tsubame!"
Emotionless, you watched him whizz out the door. And you tinkered with your light-bulb-to-be instead, hunched inwards in a way that you thought conveyed your message just fine: Busy. Kindly keep mongrel quiet and uninvolved with me.
This worked for five minutes while the sullen dog growled and Tsubame brought out the washtub and the sponges. She turned to you with that uncertain, hoping smile.
"Want to help me wash him?"
You didn't even flinch, for the answer was on the tip of your tongue. "No."
She was going to say something back, you were sure. And you might have relented, had Yotaka not burst in through the door and taken your place. You watched them go, shepherding the dog between them.
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Later, when the night had fallen and the dog was clean (for cleanliness was next to magic, in those days) Tsubame and Yotaka crept into the bed shared between you three.
And they ushered the dog into the sheets.
"No," you said.
"What?"
"I thought he was supposed to sleep on the floor," you said, because even back then, your bed was very much your special place.
"Don't be so cross," Yotaka said. "Tsubame asked if he could sleep here." (Tsubame squeaked, "He's clean!" and smoothed her hand over his fur.)
"No," you bit out. "Take the thing—"
"Can we please give him a name?"
This sidetracked you, but for the wrong reason.
"You want to name him," you stated, emanating disapproval. Yotaka wrapped his arms around his sister and beamed at you with a sneer from over her shoulder.
Back then, he smiled a lot more.
"We were thinking 'Gareki #2,'" he said. The implied insult might have flown over Tsubame's head, or she chose not to hear it. Instead she reached out for you, before you could think to brain her brother with a pillow or a fist.
"Please, Gareki? It's raining outside."
You all listened for the evidencing pitter-patter of rain on dirt and tin and gravel. When you looked down again, the dog was already asleep. Stupid animal. Mouth drawn into a thin line, you reached over to switch off the light crafted by your grubby hands.
"Just this once," you groused, and you turned over on your side and stared hard at the dark wall.
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The stray stayed three nights, and every morning without fail, you found your face pressed into dog fur, fell asleep to fluffy warmth and tail tufts on your shoulders, your neck, your cheek. The twins debated the name. You more-than-tolerated it.
The fourth day, the dog died. Some disease. Some fatal imperfection. You never liked animals.
You dug the hole for the funeral that Tsubame insisted on. You skipped out on it, though. You went to bed.
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Nai is hugging your arm. In a halting, creaking motion, like an automaton, you turn your face away because this kid's hair is always brushing against your skin. You feel so rigid, like your bones are welded straight, and even as you try to be considerate and you try to sleep and you try to find a mellower place, that mood isn't available to you. You're all sharp, all tacked, tired thoughts.
You think sleeping with Nai is kind of like sleeping with that dog, at first. Because of the warmth, and the velvety feeling from the tinges of his hair and the feel of his skin. But Nai comes from a wonderland and you sleep in a wonderland. You think Nai's been a bother, but never a mongrel. The one who comes from a dirty place is you.
Nai's really—really a lot like Tsubame, in this case.
You almost want to laugh, then. Not enough to gratify that dead boy—your almost-just-barely-brother— but just a little, because you understand the truth in his barb seven years later. It wasn't the same grime or the same dirt that tied you to that runt of a stray.
It was the look in his eyes. The outset of his limbs, the posture of his back, the bark that was worse than the bite. The mistrust and the ferality.
(the loyalty, maybe. the strength. you and yotaka, you could be charitable to each other too. )
But your views on people—on everything—have changed. And so you are not so wild, not anymore. You set your chin gently over the crown of Nai's downy-haired head, you settle like pieces falling neatly into place. Oblivious in his sleep, Nai breathes against your collarbone and your overspent head settles, too, when you think that this is maybe more-than-tolerable.
Is this what they call getting lucky? What do you think, Gareki #2?
Sleep comes and smooths you over.